“It doesn’t get easier so to speak, but there’s much more of a light at the end of the tunnel,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien has seen an influx of players choosing to be preferred walk-ons at Penn State rather than playing at other schools.

“What I’ve noticed is there are many, many kids, many, many student-athletes in Pennsylvania that have grown up dreaming about playing for Penn State, and so they all have great choices of places of where to go to school. Not many of these guys have chosen to come and walk-on at Penn State because they have a chance to play for the state university, so I think it’s going well for us, and those guys will be the bulk of our roster for the next three or four years,” O’Brien said.

The growing trend in college football has seen numerous high school athletes holding press conferences to announce where they will go to school.

O’Brien tries to not pay attention to them,

“It’s just a little out of whack right now, and so when I see those press conferences, I feel good for that young man, and it’s fun and all those things, but man, it’s just unbelievable. I try not to watch too many of those,” O’Brien said.